This PC stuff is bullshit!!
We prefer to be called what we are.
I am Cherokee and prefer to be identified as such. Most members of my tribe feel the same way.
I have a good friend who is Creek and thinks the same way. (Funny as the Cherokees and Creeks are mortal enemies. LOL)
When people ask us if we are Native Americans, we just tell them yes just to be polite because we know (and it NEVER fails) that they'll never inquire as to what tribe we belong to, much less care.
I'll tell people that I'm Cherokee and they'll immediately say "Ah, so you're Native American". To which I'll tell them that no, I'm Cherokee.
It would be the same as a Mexican identifying himself as such to someone, and that someone says, "Ah, you're a spic".
It's that irritating to us.
Dear EagleCowboy:
I hear you loud and clear. I also appreciate the noise and will, in the future, take note and remember it when drooling over a Flathead, Nez Pierce, Shoshone (many Shoshone's in Nevada who are Shoshone-licious), and the rarer Ute, Piute, and Ghosute, etc., who live in the general schema of my idea of the USA.
I had the misfortune of working for the BIA for a summer in 1973 in the Four Corners area while attending college. That internship was certainly not what I had hoped it would be. I was just an altruistic fool thinking I could help be part of the solution rather than the problem. Not.
With regard to the generalization of the slur "spic," imagine my chagrin when I realized after 4 years that my best friends and colleagues in grad school (husband and wife) were not Mexican/American nor did they identify themselves as Chicanos or "La Raza". They were, in fact, Cubans. Yeah, that was humbling revelation. When we spoke in Spanish (as opposed to castellano) I just thought they had strange accents from the States of Yucatan or Quintanna Roo instead of the northern accent I was used to hearing from Chihuahua, Sonora, and Monterrey. Yeah. Took a shaky couple of weeks before the effrontery of my ethnocentric view of the world was forgiven and our friendship healed.
So, uh . . . um . . . you got an older uncle or mature male in your family who is as hot as you who might be interested in dating a 3/4 white trash 1/4 Mexican and almost senior citizen like me?
Yours salaciously,
Mr. Midlifebear